What are you doing on Tuesday, March 26? I invite you to join me and thousands of other REALTORS® from across the state who will be going to REALTOR® Day at the Texas Capitol. If you’ve gone before, you know what an amazing experience it is. If you haven’t participated, you will leave with a feeling of accomplishment and like our collective REALTOR® voices matter. You may read more about the day here and may register to go at www.har.com/realtorday.

As if we need anyone to tell us how great our staff and members are, HAR won two awards at the recent Texas REALTORS® Winter Meeting last month. The first award was presented to Rita Klein Blevins and our Professional Development Department for the “Surviving Disruption” series, which won Best Real Estate Series or Short Education Program of the Year. The second award was for our Member Focus Monday program that Cristina Schaefer hosts and the Communications Department utilizes so effectively to better engage with our members. That program won in the Best Marketing Program of the Year category. Additionally, our member Nelvin Adriatico with CORE Realty received the 2018 Texas REALTOR® Good Neighbor Award for his outstanding community service and volunteerism.

Have you ever wanted a quick way to produce great-looking graphs that you could include in a listing presentation or just for your client’s information? HAR has partnered with Terradatum to integrate new statistical reports on the Matrix detailed listing pages. You may generate reports by a variety of criteria and can easily download them as a pdf to share with your clients. You may learn more here.

TREPAC does so much for REALTORS® and homeowners, about which many people don’t even know. Did you know that during the recent government shutdown, it was initially reported that closings wouldn’t be able to take place for any properties requiring flood insurance policies? We quickly sprang into action, called our legislators, and the closings were able to continue despite the government shutdown. With the current Texas Legislative session going on in Austin, TREPAC is there fighting for REALTORS® and homeowner every day. Learn more about TREPAC and how to make your investment here.

What better way to spend these spring months preparing for the upcoming summer selling season than to take an HAR professional development course—or two—or three. You can find some of our featured programs on page 40. There is everything from hands-on Matrix courses and marketing classes to REALTOR® Launch and the Graduate REALTOR® Institute. There is something for everyone!

And don’t forget to apply for the Texas REALTORS® Leadership Program (TRLP). As a 2012 graduate of the TLRP program, I can attest that it is one of the best things you can do to elevate your career and to just become a better citizen involved in the community. You may learn more here. The deadline to apply is March 22, so make sure to submit your application today.

Until Next Month,

Shannon Cobb Evans
2019 HAR Chair